Tuesday’s 200 Words: All the Beautiful Sounds

Driving east on the 10 yesterday morning, my challenged attention span relaxed for more than a minute and I became engrossed in some music on the classical station. I didn’t know what it was, but it sounded vaguely familiar. Exciting. Moving. Consequential. I thought about how weird it is that animals don’t seem to respond to music. I thought about my good fortune that traffic was light. I thought about how satisfied I felt to have written just an hour or two before. I wondered what I was listening to and I looked down at the little screen that lights up with letters and numbers on the stereo. What is that? LCD? LED? It’s the radio. I looked at the radio. And the radio said:

LEONA

BERNSTEI

And I was like, Leona Bernstei. Right on. I need to look her up when I get home.

This is goo——West Side Story. This is West Side Story.

Those riffs from “Somewhere” circled around each of my lungs and lifted me up from the inside. It wasn’t my memory of the lyrics. It was physical.

I thought again about how weird it is that animals don’t seem to respond to music.